African Adventures
by TeenageTimeTraveler
Summary: Nefertiti and Riddell's adventures in Africa.
1. Mornings

The shotgun echoed around the African savannah, bouncing off the still, empty air and rolling back to Riddell from the log he sat on.

"Damn lions." He muttered, placing the shot gun across his lap.

In the middle of their camp, the fire flickered. It was large, and certainly attracting a few unwanted guests. Three shots had already been fired into te black abyss that was the surrounding bush that night, and Riddell wasn't too thrilled to be using up the ammo. Not when they were so far into the wilderness.

Unlike the last three times he'd shot the gun, Nefertiti didn't poke her head around the enterance to the tent and ask what was going on. She was either asleep was tired of hearing the word "lions" - which she was sure Riddell had made up, as she'd never seen one herself.

With his eyelids beginning to droop, Riddell decided it was best to retire to the tent. The question now, though, was should he wake up Neffy or should he leave her and put out the fire? If he put out the fire they would need to relight one for breakfast, which would entail gathering more wood, potentially having to chop it and finding some stones decent enough to relight the fire; the alternative was waking up Nerfatiti from her sleep and dealing with her angry, half-sleep wrath. He decided that the first was a better option.

Pouring a bucket of water over the fire, Riddell stamped on the embers and watched them die, the smoking curling up into the still night air. He kicked off his boots outside, which he never would of done before, but Nefertiti had requested - no, demanded it once she had arrived. He would need to remember to shake them for any sort of bug before he woke up.

Removing his hat and resting it by his pillow, he glanced over at Nefertiti. She always kept a straight face, seemingly relaxed, but it was only at night that she truly let go, and even then it wasn't voluntary. Her mouth curved up into a small smile, her eyelids would flicker with the dreams that lay behind them, and every so often she would murmur or sigh, or both, and turn over. It would cause him to smile every time she did.

When he woke up, Riddell lay for just a few seconds, with his eyes closed. It was his habit to do so - he remembered everything from the day before, and everything he had to do that day, and only then would he get up. This morning, he did as usually did, and then went to get up. He had to collect the wood, potentially chop it, relight the fire and start breakfast. But when he sat up in bed, he could already hear the sounds of stone against stone, repeatedly hitting each other in what Riddell assume to be an effort to start a fire. Looking to his left, he noticed that Nefertiti was already up. Grinning slightly, he crawled out of the tent.

"Good morning." He said, standing up and picking up one of his boots.

"Good morning." Nefertiti returned with a small smile.

Shaking the boot in his hand and deciding it was safe, he slipped it on. He did the same with the other one, while asking, "How long have you been awake?"

"Long enough to start the fire and the breakfast." She said, raising an eyebrow as she looked up at him. The flames began to rise upward, as Riddell put on his second boot.

"As a woman should." He nodded.

"I will still shoot you." Nefertiti retorted, raising an eyebrow.

Riddell laughed, sitting down on the log and placing his hat on his head, which he had retrived from inside the tent after putting his boots on.

Nefertiti held a pan over the fire, and fried some of the meat Riddell had caught yesterday - the correct use for the ammo. Pushing some of it from the pan to the little tin bowl that belong to Riddell, Nefertiti asked, "And where are we headed today?"

"Up the mountain." He replied with a nod to it. "As long as you can handle it." He raised an eyebrow, grinning.

"Of course I can." Nefertiti retreated to her own log, as she ate from the pan. "Though you shan't, if you keep talking to me like that."

"And why's that?" Riddell asked, raising an eyebrow again.

With a puse, Nefertiti swallowed what was in her mouth, and said, "Because I'll snap your legs." 


	2. Climbing

_I just wanted to say, thank you so much, everyone, for the reviews! I had to write a Nefertiti/Riddell fanfic, because they fun times that would ensue would be awesome, and I'm so glad you're all enjoying it!_

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"You'll never get over this in that gear." Riddell said from some way ahead of Nefertiti. "You need proper hunting clothes. Trousers, vest. And that silly hat-"

"Is a sign of my position." Nefertiti said, not raising her voice though he was head of her. "And I shan't be removing it."

If she was honest, she was struggling. But struggle would only make the end result better, make it feel like more of a reward, and here was no way she was going to let that sexist pig think he was right. So she continued onward, trying her best to make up the distance between them, and walk only a foot or so behind him.

"Shall we break for camp?" Riddell asked, about 20 minutes or so later. He could hear the small grunts of exertion and the heavy breathing from his partner, and he knew she was struggling. He didn't say anything. He wanted to keep his legs.

"No," Despite being slightly breathless, Nefertiti's voice was strong, giving he illusion that she was all right. "Let's keep going." She hiked up past him, and as she did so, she raised an eyebrow. "Unless you wish to stop?"

Riddell grinned, and shook his head. "Not at all. Let's keep going."

They hiked for a while, in silence. It was usual for silence to fall between the two of them, because they both knew the importance of saving your breath and not wasting oxygen on talking to one another. As well ast that, any exchange between them tended to be sarcastic, and there was really nothing to say.

Below them, the African plains stretched out for miles and miles around. There were clusters of trees dotted everywhere around, a small stream cut the savannah in half, and every so often a herd of animals, most likely wilderbeast or antelope would pick their way across the dusty ground to the stream, following it up to where it pooled, and turned into a watering hole. Nefertiti had asked to camp by it, one night - she loved the animals, the strange beasts that she had never seen before. But Riddell had said no. It was too dangerous. Rinos, Elephants, Lions - he couldn't shoot them all. That wasn't the reason he gave the Egyptian Queen, but it was the real reason. He said that it would be too wet and muddy around the water to set up a camp; but really he knew he couldn't protect her.

"We're breaking for lunch." Riddell anounced, setting down his bag as they came to a dip in the mountain side. Almost like a cave, but extremely shallow.

Nefertiti stopped, and turned. "And whos decision is this?"

"Mine."

"Do I not get a say?"

"No."

"And why not?"

"Because you're a woman."

Though her face was serene, Riddell could see the fire behind Nefertiti's eyes. Any comment like that would result in a quip about her breaking some part of his anatomy, though she never actually did it.

Well, it was only a matter of time.

Holding her head up high, Nefertiti dropped her pack and sat down on top of it, using it as a seat and pulling it up nearer to Riddell. "Next time," She began, dipping into the pocket in the front of the bag, "I choose when we stop."

Raising his eyebrows and nodding, Riddell silently agreed. He wasn't about to argue.

"And if your reasoning for my not being allowed to do something again is 'because i am a woman' I will snap your neck and feed you to the vultures."

"I should never of told you what those birds were." Riddell shook his head, snapping off some of the protein bar and shoving it in his mouth.

They ate in silence, Riddell studying the map of the savannah and Nefertiti looking out on the landscape around them. Unlike Riddell, she preferred to let her heart and her stomach guide her, rather than a map. She had never done this "exploring" before, but she was enjoying it. What she wasn't enjoying was when the exploring ended. She would have to go back to England with Riddell. She could not return to Egypt.

"What is that over there?" She asked, swallowing a piece of the protein bar and raising her hand to point at a group of four or five animals that were quickly making their way across the plains. She had never seen anything like them before, except back home, in Egypt. "It looks like a cat." She tilted her head slightly as she thought about her own cat, that she had back home. They were sacred to the people who came before her, but with her husband, Nefertiti had eradicated the worship of animals. That didn't mean she didn't like them, though.

"It's a Cheetah." Riddell nodded, taking out his sketch book to show the queen a drawing he'd once made of a cheetah that had stopped close by to his tent. "The run with immense speed, but can only keep it up for seconds at a time. They're solitary animals, generally. Unlike the lion, which live in prides."

Nefertiti nodded, turning the page to look at the rest of the sketches of this particular animal that Riddell had produced. He had scrawled a few notes around it, but Nefertiti was still learning English, and could only really rad hyroglyphics. Snapping the book shut, she handed it back to him. She watched the beast for a few more minutes - it did nothing but trot across the savannah, occasionally stopping to sniff here and there, and then walk in the direction of the waterhole, with it's tail standing erect. "That's how the other animals know it means no harm." Riddell told her around bites of food.

When it had completely disppeared from view, Nefertiti stood. "We should be going, then." She said, shouldering her pack.

Riddell wasn't about to argue, and swallowed the last of his lunch. Slinging his pack over one shoulder, he nodded. "Lead the way." He said, allowing Nefertiti to begin the wlk up the mountainside.


	3. Forest

"Oh yes. Yes. This is _perfect_."

Riddell and Nefi had stopped, side by side. For a while, the mountiain had been growing less grassy, and more spotted with trees, and Riddell had had a feeling that, in a while, they would reach a dip in the mountains, a canyon of some sort, and they would reach a forest. He was right. In front of them lay a thick cluster of trees, probably reaching back a long way, at least two or three miles. The space between the trees was black, as they allowed no light through, and all that could be heard was soft howls and coraky cawing.

"A forest. Excellent." Riddell was grinning from ear to ear, thoroughly thrilled. Forests meant undiscovered lands, brand new species, and all new genera of plants. It was an explorers dream. "And apparently unexplored." he looked for signs of footprints in the grass, but there were none. And no one had mapped the forest onto the moutain; it was fair to assume that no one had ever seen this before.

"Then we shall be the first." Nefi murmured, almost to herself, tilting her head back to look to the top of the trees.

"Come on," Riddell said, beckoning her forward as he began to walk towards the trees. "There's no time like the present."

The forest floor was dense and damp, and squelched underneath their feet as the walked through the underbrush. Even though her dress fell to just below her ankles, Nefertiti was having no trouble manouvering over the fallen branches and spiny plants, and she was quite proud of herself. She had ignored Riddell's advice to change into trousers, but she did not ignore his advice to wear gloves while she clipped some of the less poisonous looking plants from their homes.

"We should camp here." Nefertiti said, as they reached a small clearing in the trees. It was strange to find such a clearing - the grass seemed to be trampled, and the trees pushed down and snapped, as if something had done it deliberately. She didn't give it any thought; neither did he.

Riddell wanted to keep going, but he kept his mouth shut. He slung down his pack, and looked up at the canopy. The sky was blocked out for long, green leaves. There were some spots were the light filtered through the small gaps, little rays of light in the near-darkness, but they were disappearing fast. It had to be nearly sun set; the tent had to be assembled before then.

"Of course." Riddell answered simply, setting his pack down and pulling out the rolled-up tent. He assembled it with the help of Nefertiti, who was beginning to be able to put it up without the help and instructions from Riddell.

When it was up, and their sleeping kits unwravelled and layed out, Nefertiti straightened her back and put her hands on her hips. "I'll take first watch." She said. It was only fair - he had taken the first watch last night. "The gun?"

Riddell held out th shot gun that was strapped to the back of his pack, and she tuck it with a nod.

"Try to keep the fire small." Riddell said, as he kicked off his boots and entered the tent. "We don't want any unwanted guests."

When silence fell from the spot behind her, and Riddell fell into sleep, Nefertiti wondered, "What unwanted guests could there possibly be in here?"

But she slowly began to realise, as the sun completely set and the oon rose, that the forest was more alive at night than it ever was during the day. The noise in the forest slowly rose until it was a crescendo of chirping, tweeting, cawing and hissing, all noises that the Egyptian queen had never once heard before. Howling from all around her, cawing from above her, scuttling from below her - she had no idea where the animals were, when very sound bounced of the tree trunks surrounding them. She clutched the gun with narrowed eyes, daring something to stop forward and try to take their camp.

It wasn't long until something accepted the challenge.

Hearing a twig snap directly in front of her, Nefertiti raised her head to look at it. Her eyes were growing accustomed to the light, and she did not blink, in case she missed something in that split second. A few more snaps from in front. And then a low, gutteral growl.

The bushes in front were town apart as something burst forth from out of the black, and the woman raised the gun as quickly as she could to try and shoot the beast, but it was futile. It was too quick, and was on top of her before she could even put her finger on the trigger. Still the gun shot, straight into the air, creating a loud bang and scattering a few birds. The beast was on top of her now, large white fangs glowing in the darkness. Grunting as she struggled against it, Nefertit tried to push the beast - which easily weighed twice as much as her - over to the side, where she would have the advantage. But the beast was pushing back, it's teeth inching towards her throat. She pushed up with all of the force she could muster, extending her arms and throwing the beast back slightly, but not before it could sink it's teeth into her arms. She cried out, wincing for a moment before attempting to push it back even further.

There was another shot from behind her, and the animal fell, completely limp in her arms. It was still heavy, and she gasped as she tried to push it off her stomach. It was rolled away with the help of Riddell, who had shot out from the tent at the sound of the gun shot, and had shot the animal that had dared to attack.

Desperately throwing some more wood on the fire to try and make it bigger, Riddell brought Nefertiti up to the light. She kept a straight face, but her lip quivered with pain, and Riddell took a deep breath as her looked at the wound in the fire light. It was deep. Extremely deep. And gushing blood. "Stay here." He instructed her. "I'll go get the medical pack." For once, she did not argue.

He dug around in the dark for the bag of medical supplies, and produced some cloth and some bandages. He wiped out the wound carefully, and then wrapped the bandage around it. The entire time, the Egyptian queen grit her teeth and almost held her breath, not allowing herself to show the pain she was in.

"We need to get you help. Proper help." Riddell said, still keeping hold of her injured arm. "There's a vilage just over the other side of the forest, down the mountain. They can help there. It'll be morning in a few hours." He looked up at her, straight into her eyes to show his seriousness. There was no room for joking now. "Don't sleep. Stay awake. I'll stay up, too."

He let go of her arm, and grabbed the gun, resting it over his lap. They fell back into silence, while Nefi took deep breaths through her nose to try and calm herself.

"Riddell?" She asked, gulping and staring deep into the flames.

"Yes?" He looked over at her, the fire reflecting in his eyes.

She looked at him, the same flickering flames bright in her own eyes. "Thank you."


	4. Trecking

"Just so you know, I'm not happy about this." Nefertiti said, as she pulled on the pale, sandy coloured trousers and wrapped her dressed up, and folded it away in the pack.

"You need to look normal!" Riddell called from outside of the tent. "If there's anyone civilised out there then we can't have them knowing that Queen Nefertiti's exploring the African Plains of the modern day!"

Nefi sighed, but she knew he was right. Her arm was quickly going numb, and she wasn't sure that it had stopped bleeding, rather that the blood was clotting; which she knew wasn't good at all. They had to get her to the village across the mountain, and quickly. Neither of them wanted to think about what would happen if they didn't.

She left the tent, and put her hands on her hips. "There." She said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. She looked like one of them, now.

"Here." Riddell held out his hat to her.

Without moving, Nefertiti looked down at it. Looking back up at Riddell, she asked, "What's this?"

"A hat." Riddell nodded. "Women in my time wear them. Well, they do if theyre being proper."

"How sporting of them." Nefi took the hat, and returned in to Riddell's head, walking past him to pick up her pack.

"Here, I'll take that." Riddell held out his hand for her pack. His was already slung across his shoulder.

"I can handle it." She replied haughtily, pulling it on and gripping the handels, trying not to wince or whimper in pain. It still hurt when under physical strain, despite the fact that it was going numb. She just had to get it seen to. "Come on then." She nodded to the forest in front of them. "Let's go."

The hike through the forest was a lot harder than it was entering it. They moved more quickly, and ended up tripping over more fallen branches and hidden, mossy stones, and Nefi's hair didn't want to go too quickly either; it snagged on some of the smaller branches, and she was forced to simply yank at it and carry on.

By the time they broke out into thick, block sunlight - which caused them both to raise a hand to their eyes and wince - it was about noon, and the sun was at its highest in the clear, blue sky. They had been walking for at least four hours without a break, and Nefertiti was growing tired. From loss of blood or just the excerise she wasn't sure; she liked to think it was loss of blood.

"It'll take us an hour to walk down the mountain, at minimum." Riddell peered through his binoculars at the large mountainside. "But the village is just a mile or so away after that, it seems." He lowered the binoculars and walked back a few steps to Nefertiti, having walked forward to get a better look. "We'll break for lunch, and then carry on. Agreed?"

Nefertiti steadied herself with a deep breath. She was starting to feel a little dizzy. "Agreed."

She almost threw her pack down, and fell on with a light thump. She dug around clumsily for her protein bar, her fingers fumbling over the canvas. Riddell watched with a grave face. He wanted to help, but knew she'd never accept the offer. He turned his attention to his own pack, and retrieving his own lunch, before looking up to check that she was all right.

She ate quickly, though she was at a loss for appetite. They both ate quickly, so that by the time it would usually take Riddell to eat half of the bar and reload the shot gun, they were stood up and ready to go again.

"Looks like rain." Riddell observed, peering up at the heavens. "We don't want to be caught out in that."

"I didn't worship this morning." Nefertiti huffed, picking up her pack and resting it against her back. Had it gotten heavier since last time? "Aten is displeased."

In their month or so that they'd spent together so far, Riddell had learned that worshipping was of the utmost important to Nefertiti. She never missed a morning or evening's worship, no matter where she was. She believed that if she didn't, Aten would be displeased. She blamed him for the rains, as well as the drought and the famine. The death of the animals due to starvation was because she or someone else had missed a beat. Riddell wasn't religious. But it was nice to have something to blame.

"You had other things on your mind." He said, as he began walking. "I'm sure he'll understand."

Pursing her lips, Nefertiti nodded. Perhaps he would. Or perhaps he would still punish her. She had only ever missed a worship twice before.

"Come on," Riddell prompted her. She had stopped to stare at the heavens. "One more hour."

"One more hour." She breathed, following him down the grassy mountainside.


	5. Help

"Keep going. Come on. We must keep going."

"John-"

"No. Keep moving."

Every step was pure misery. Her arm ached from the dull thud of it hitting her side as she walked, though it had gone numb enough for it to be rendered useless by now. She thought she could feel it clotting, which was a good sign, as it would stop the bleeding, but why should it? She was slacking on her worship and she had left her whole other life behind - she didn't really deserve a healing wound.

But Riddell was adamant. He would carry her if he had to, though she'd hate that. He had to get her to that village, the village he could see just a small way off in the distance, the very beginnings of a street that could help his friend.

"Look, there's the street." Riddell pointed, and Nefertiti's eyes scanned the horizon for where he was gesturing to. She saw it, eventually - a row of little huts, not proper houses like Riddell had been hoping for, but still, homes. Places where people lived. There had to be someone who could help.

There was four houses in this little row, and they seemed to be the only organised street in the entire village. The rest of the huts were just dotted around sporadically, no pattern or order to them at all, seemingly. The huts themselves had proper walls, built from mud, semingly, that had been allowed to dry in the baking African sun. The roof was made from either straw or twigs, though the straw was more common than the twigs - there must be a plantation near by.

Riddell marched straight the the first hut, and knocked on the door.

"How will they understand you?" Nefertiti asked, clutching her forehead. She was starting to get a head ache.

"The same way you can understand me." He nodded.

Nefertiti's hand slid to the back of her head, right at the bottom. There was a chip, a miniscule, tiny chip, that the TARDIS had created. It was the only way they could communicate effectively, and it only affected speech. It hadn't yet effected reading.

"And who's to say I don't speak Swahili?" Riddell arched an eyebrow, turning away from the woman and back to the door, as it swung open.

"Wapendwa?" The woman was small, with dark skin and long, jet black hair, tied to just below her waist in a thick braid. She carried a little boy on her arm, and wore brightly coloured clothes. She didn't seem too happy to see them.

Nefertiti sighed. The chip only worked on her. What were they going to do now?

"Wapendwa, bibie. Tafadhali, unaweza kutusaidia? Rafiki yangu imekuwa waliojeruhiwa vibaya sana." Riddell spoke as if the language was his first, rather than English. He looked the woman in the eyes as he spoke, begging her with his own to help his friend. Nefertiti watched him with wide eyes - for a man who boasted about everything, he had never told her that he could speak more then one language.

"Hebu nione?" The woman looked behind Riddell to Nefertiti, who was watching them converse with wide eyes and an otherwise straight face. She had no idea what the woman had asked.

Riddell turned around, standing off to the side so that the woman could still see Nefertiti, but that he could see her, too. "Show her your arm. Under the bandage."

Nefertiti nodded. She had to walk hard to lift her arm, and as she pulled off the bandage she found it caked in blood. It was sticky, and hard to pull away from her skin. There was more blood than she'd originally thought.

Most people would have wrinkled their nose and turned away, but this woman in the doorway kept a straight face, leaned forward slightly to get a better look at the bite, and then swayed back again, returning to her original position. "Kuja katika." She said, walking away from the doorway and into the hut.

Riddell seemed relieved. "Come on," he said. "She's letting us in."

Inside the hut was a single room. It was round, and had a few beds up against one side, a little fire with a stove over it off to another side, and in the middle were several bankets and sheets spread out on the floor, where three or four other children sat, playing. All of the sheets in the room were brightly coloured, reds and greens and yellows, and the children that played on them seemed to bounce the colours off them selves, with large smiles and bright personalities. They giggled and laughed, hardly paying attention to the woman with the bite.

The woman set her child down on the blanket, and left him to play with his brothers and sisters. He was the youngest of them all, about two years old, perhaps, and he sat by himself instead of engaging in their game. She pulled a chair off from against the wall, and sat it by the window, the only small window, that didn't actually have any glass, in the entire hut. "Kukaa." She said, pointing to the chair, and moved off toward one her children.

"Sit down." Riddell said, quite gently compared to how he usually would.

Nefertiti nodded, and sat herself down in the chair. She wasn't bothered by blood, or gore, or anything of the sort, but she could feel her lunch coming back up at the sight of the ripped open flesh. Maybe because that ripped up flesh belonged to her.

"I didn't know you spoke their language." She murmured, looking away from the wound to the window.

"I've been travelling for a long time. Learning was essential." He replied.

Nefertiti simply nodded. The woman came back, and peered at her arm. She had a needle, and some thread, and she looked over it. "Mimi itabidi kuweka majani baadhi juu yake kwanza. Kisha tutaweza kushona ni."

Riddell nodded. Nefertiti was becoming tired of this. "What is she doing?" She asked. The woman went away again, having set the needle and thread down on the window sill.

"She's going to clean it up," Riddell began. "And then sew it."

"Sew it?"

Riddell nodded. "Just be brave."

Nefertiti arched an eyebrow. "I am brave. I'm Queen of the Egyptians, lady of the two lan-"

"You were. Now be brave."


End file.
